Page:Walpole - Fortitude.djvu/37

 “What kind of stockings did Mr. Galleon wear?”

“He didn't wear stockings unless, as you might say, in country attire, and then, if I remember correctly, they were grey.”

"Had he any children?”

“There was one little dear when I had the honour of being in the house—and since then I have heard that there are two more.”

"Mrs. Trussit, where do children come from?”

“They are brought by God's good angels when we are all asleep in the night time.”

"Oh! (this rather doubtfully). A pause—then “Did the Earl of Twinkerton have hot or cold baths?”

“Cold in the morning, I believe, with the chill off and hot at night before dressing for dinner. He was a very cleanly gentleman.”

"Mrs. Trussit, where is Patagonia? It came in the history this morning.”

“North of the Caribbean Sea, I believe, my dear.”

And so on, and Peter never forgot any of her answers. About the carol-singers she was a little irritable. They had woken her it seemed from a very delightful sleep, and she considered the whole affair “savoured of Paganism.” And then Peter found suddenly that he didn't wish to talk about the carol-singers at all because the things that he felt about them were, in some curious way, not the things that he could say to Mrs. Trussit.

She was very kind to him during that Christmas week and gave him mixed biscuits out of a brightly shining tin that she kept in a cupboard in her room. But outside the gates of her citadel she was a very different person, spoke to Peter but rarely, and then always with majesty and from a long way away. Her attitude to the little maid-of-all-work was something very wonderful indeed, and even to Aunt Jessie her tone might be considered patronising.

But indeed to Aunt Jessie it was very difficult to be anything else. Aunt Jessie was a poor creature, as Peter discovered very early in life. He found that she never had any answers ready to the questions that he asked her and that she hesitated when he wished to know whether he might do a thing or no. She was always trembling and